Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Fan Love

I was recently delighted to see that the number of likes on the Ink Circles Facebook page had grown to the 3000 mark. I decided that this deserved a big thank you.

About this time, I was sharing some photos of stitching on wood and a friend (waves at Julia) pointed out that Red Gate Stitchery's skinny bamboo blank looked perfect for a T.A.R.D.I.S.

Occasionally there is a minor kerfluffle to bring it into the light, but many stitchers do not realize that practically every chart they see that pays tribute to a movie, a TV series, a superhero, a band, a song, anything to do with an empire run by a mouse wearing pants, etc., needs to be properly licensed to be legal. The ferocity with which the trademark holders swoop down on you depends on a few factors: their own in-house legal budget, how prominent/obscure the violation is, how much they think the artist is going to make, and whether Mercury is in retrograde.  Licensing is extremely expensive and really inhibits the commercial level cross-stitch designers from getting in the game. Swarms of hobbyist designers play (or are) ignorant and put up infringing charts for sale on Etsy or their blog or wherever.

So, absolutely no TARDIS charts coming from me. I offer instead a complimentary chart of this generic substitute: Perfectly Ordinary British Police Box. ( I really did look it up to ensure that a generic version did exist and they weren't invented just for the show.) No trademark. No money changing hands. No problems.

Click here to download my PDF.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the freebie! My daughter went to Dragon Con last weekend and she will love this.

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  2. I think this is great - my brother is an extreme dalek fan.

    I need him not to see this.

    Interesting fact: the new Who opening credits were done by a fan. They were based on his fan-vid home-brew opening sequence he posted on you tube. Steve Moffatt (the Dr Who supremo) saw it and hired the guy. I freaked out when I saw the new series - it was familiar-disturbing.

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  3. In my home town, we still have one of the old police boxes. It's no longer used but is still there and intact. It does freak people out when they see it and aren't expecting it to be there!

    Thank you for the lovely little chart :)

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